A King's Reflections
by Kari and KyonKyon
Summary: A glimpse into Van's mind right before the infamous bridge scene.


*Disclaimer*: If I truly owned Escaflowne, I wouldn't have to post this on a free-for-all fanfiction website as I'd be rolling in money. I also wouldn't be singing something along the lines of "Oh, I wish I owned the Escaflowne series/ that I truly live to be/ for if I owned the Escaflowne series/ everyone would pay me royalties"   
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A King's Reflections  
  
I touched my cheek tenderly, still feeling the sting of the slap. It brought back memories of a past so recent, yet so different, that they seemed of another world. In a way, they were, for I saw a girl standing before me. A girl with short, spiky hair who was glaring at me angrily while wearing an outfit that seemed much too short for the climate. A girl who slapped me soundly across the face before bursting into tears. A girl whose name I would soon come to know . . . and treasure.  
  
Shaking my head in a vain attempt to rid it of the memories which threatened to overwhelm me, I picked up my file and continued to sharpen my sword. It had picked up a few scratches since our last battle against Zaibach. A lot more than a few, actually, but I was doing my best to ignore that fact. Unbidden, a memory came into my mind.  
  
"Scherazade's sword ain't got a scratch on it!"   
  
"Well, *excuse me*. I'm not as good with a sword as Allen, okay?"  
  
"He's lying. It's got a few nicks in it. Not as many as yours, though."   
  
"No. No way. I won't. I don't want to see it. Don't use me like I'm some tool." Hitomi's voice pierced my mind as clearly as if I was standing there now.   
  
"Stop counting on me! Don't make me do any more readings! Don't make me have those horrible visions! Please!" She was crying tears of pain , and her whole face showed her distress.  
  
*Hitomi*. My heart contracted painfully at the thought. I paused my work, and gazed down at my reflection in the giant sword. *I never intended to hurt you like that,* I thought mournfully. Remembering Fanelia, Balgus, being captured, almost dying, and then journeying to the Valley of the Dead, I chuckled self-depreciatingly. *You didn't intend for a lot of things to happen, O Mighty King of Fanelia.* Falling in love with Hitomi was one of them.  
  
Even now, looking back, it didn't make sense that I would fall in love with her. I'd never had any real friends, let alone *female* friends, unless you counted Merle. Which I did, but it wasn't the same as what I felt for Hitomi. It went far beyond a simple sense of companionship, the kind of easy friendship you could always depend on. It was more of a . . . well, I wasn't really sure what it was. All I knew was that the feeling was strong, very strong, and it grew stronger every I saw her.  
  
*Why, though?* I wondered idly. *Why her?* Unconsciously, I began to recall all of my moments with her.   
  
Being deposited by a mysterious pillar of blue light in an unfamiliar land, and almost immediately being run into by a strange girl with antennae cowlicks . . .  
  
Hearing "Look out! Above you!" screamed from behind me and narrowly escaping death . . .  
  
Being slapped across the face in my arrogance by the girl and, moments later, having the same girl transported with me back to Gaea . . .  
  
Riding on a yak-mammoth and seeing her stare blindly out into space, yet seeing more than I ever could . . .  
  
Timidly entering the training hall and bowing in apology . . .  
  
Screaming from behind me as I attack my enemy . . .  
  
Collapsed on the forest floor with a strange man leaning over her . . .  
  
Recognition flooding her face as I am shoved roughly into the room . . .  
  
Shock and embarrassment spreading rapidly across her features as Allen kisses her and I am filled with an emotion I can't identify . . .  
  
Staring horrified at the "death card" and seeming somehow to fade away . . .  
  
Telling me not to fight Allen, and telling Allen to take everyone and go far away . . .  
  
Shrieking at Mr. Mole and proclaiming the arrival of the invisible giants . . .  
  
Shouting for me to, once again, watch my back as I encounter another brush with death. . .  
  
Allen telling me it's Hitomi I should thank for my rescue. . .  
  
Explaining myself, since Allen's gone, that Hitomi is not a handmaiden . . .  
  
Seeing her waltz into the room in a dress that completely hid the fact she was a tomboy . . .   
  
Being bowled over by the force of her slamming into me right before the liquid metal hit the place where I had been standing, and seeing the wild fear for my life in her eyes . . .  
  
Telling her she didn't want to go upstairs, because, deep down, I knew how much she'd be hurt by what she would see . . .  
  
Seeing the shocked look on her face after I rescued her, though she'd already saved me five times . . .  
  
Talking to her about my family, and promising to return her to the Mystic Moon . . .  
  
Staring at me in fearful apology as the Zaibach solider plays with his sword, and shrieking for them to stop as they beat me . . .  
  
Watching helplessly as the snake curled around her body and feeling more afraid than I had in my entire life . . .  
  
Until I saw her plummeting into the darkness, knowing that there was only one way to save her . . .  
  
Her eyes widening as she sees my curse, my wings and whispers a word I don't know . . .  
  
Telling me that my wings are beautiful, which no one but Merle had ever done before . . .  
  
Seeing her about to be hit by one of the stray strands of liquid metal, and knowing I can't make it in time . . .  
  
Silently observing her grief as we are told Allen might die . . .  
  
Trying her best to explain her "dowsing" abilities and teaching me to do the same. . .  
  
Seeing her lying dead on the floor of the interrogation room and pushing in time with my suddenly louder than normal heartbeat in a desperate attempt to bring her back . . .  
  
Screaming in horror and fainting as we approach the tower, yet somehow managing to come back enough to help me see Dilandau . . .  
  
Running from me after refusing to use her powers anymore . . .  
  
Apologizing for her hysterics and making me come so close to telling her of my feelings . . .  
  
Hearing her call me from outside Escaflowne despite all the pain I'm in and responding. . .  
  
Being told, once again, that it's Hitomi I should thank for my life . . .  
  
Gently calling me back from my fear, from the Valley of the Dead, and clinging onto me as I flew us up through the beam of light back to our friends . . .  
  
Seeing her snap at Dryden for teasing Allen, and coming across them minutes later in a half-embrace . . .  
  
Reaching her hand out to me even though she knows that helping me will cause her pain as well . . .  
  
Seeing her sit on the steps in self-loathing . . .  
  
A smile – that I didn't realize had appeared – faded. *Why did she say she made herself sick?* I wondered. She seemed very unlike herself today. I guess that's why I felt the need to cheer her up. It seemed to be working at first. She had enjoyed the piscus juice, and I seemed to be getting through to her about how she shouldn't go walking around with a nervous look on her face, but my efforts fell apart as I was seized by the sudden need to explain my feelings for her.   
  
"Hitomi, I want you to stay with me from now on," I murmured.  
  
I could hear the piscus gourd as it hit the floor with a dull thud. I could hear her stammering, asking what I meant. I could hear myself repeating my words, only more simply, more loudly. But most importantly, when I turned around, I could see her fear. She was afraid of me. Hitomi, who had faced down a doppleganger, been carried into numerous battles, and journeyed to the Valley of the Dead, was afraid of me. So I did the only thing I could think of: I claimed I wanted her power.  
  
I felt my cheek again. It still seemed a little numb, though the red had long faded away to nothing. Sort of like my courage. I smiled sadly. Even after examining my memories, it was almost impossible for me to tell when I started thinking of her as more than a king's duty, a traveling companion, a trusted friend. Almost.  
  
I was snapped out of my reverie by the sound of raindrops pounding on the rooftop. Glancing out the doorway, I realized for the first time that it was raining quite heavily outside, in the open outdoors that Hitomi had run into. After a few moment's hesitation, I ran out into the storm, looking around wildly as if expecting to immediately be granted knowledge of her whereabouts by the surrounding trees.  
  
"Where are you going, Van-sama?" yelled Merle.  
  
"To find Hitomi!" I shouted back, running down the path as it became obvious that Hitomi wasn't in the immediate vicinity.  
  
"Just let her go!" Merle called angrily after my fleeing form. "You'll catch cold!"  
  
I ignored her and kept running. Hitomi probably hadn't gone far. I would find her and apologize for scaring her. Maybe some other time I could work up the courage again to tell her how I felt. Some other day . . .  
  
As I wandered deeper into the city, I began to worry. Where was Hitomi? Had she gone farther than I thought? Surely she had tried to find some kind of cover. Was I just a fool for running out after her? *At least the rain's lightening up a bit,* I thought as I walked under a passageway, thankful for the brief respite from the hammering pain on my back. I glanced about my surroundings yet again, and saw   
  
. . . Hitomi. But she wasn't alone. She was standing in the middle of a wooden bridge, plainly soaked through,   
  
. . . and she was kissing Allen.   
  
Allen Schezar, Knight Caeli, knight of the Heavens, the one who had found her in the rain, the one who protected her with his life,  
  
. . . the one who she loved.  
  
I tried to move, tried to run, but my legs wouldn't obey me. So I just stood there, staring, hoping against hope that I hadn't seen what I thought I had, hoping it was all some mirage, some evil plot of Zaibach's, hoping they had used dopplegangers to trick me . . .  
  
And hoping the couple on the bridge couldn't hear the sound of my heart breaking.  
  
As I watched, they pulled apart, Hitomi's head bowed low. Turning away from Allen, she murmured something I couldn't hear, probably simply a sweet nothing. He placed his hands comfortingly on her shoulders, and she looked up and saw   
  
. . . me.  
  
Our eyes met for a moment, and I could see the raw shock and fear present in hers. That was enough. My legs finally deciding to rejoin my body, I tore my gaze away from her and ran none too gracefully away from the site. I stopped a few blocks later, the pain in my chest too great to continue, though whether it was physical pain or otherwise I couldn't tell.  
  
"I am a fool," I muttered to myself softly, leaning against the comforting sturdiness of a stone wall. I almost felt like laughing at the irony of my earlier thoughts, but somehow I knew if I did, I'd cry instead.  
  
Of course she loved Allen. It should have been obvious from the start. The way she always stood up for him, the way she always seemed to become shyer around him, the way Millerna always looked at her . . . and, like a fool, I had ignored all the clues. I sighed. So she was in love with Allen. So what? Why had I run away from such a little unimportant discovery?   
  
I had a tendency to ask questions I already knew the answers to. This one was no exception. Because I didn't want to see the pity in her eyes. I knew, somehow, that if I had stayed but a few moments longer, I would have. I would have seen pity for me, Van Fanel, in those emerald green eyes. Those beautiful emerald green eyes that were a link to her soul . . .  
  
I shook my head of such thoughts. Hitomi was in love with Allen. I could accept that. I could accept that, wish them well, and move on. It'd only been an infatuation after all. Every teenager went through a few infatuations, even if they were king of a country and fought in warfare like someone twice their age. Everyone did without exception. They went through infatuations. Why was there any reason for me to be upset, if it'd only been an infatuation? Only an infatuation. An infatuation . . .  
  
Listening to my thoughts as I climbed the incline to the windmill, explanations for Merle already on my lips, I began to wonder just how badly I was trying to convince myself.  
  
--------------------------A/N----------------------------  
~*^_^*~: Hee hee! I wrote this one all by myself!  
/'^_^'\: Sore wa gokai desu na! I am the one who was singing the song that inspired you to write that disclaimer!  
~*^_^*~: Umm . . . riiiiiight.   
/'^_^'\: The Kei-twins have triumphed again!  
~*^_^*~: I repeat: riiiiiight. Oh, and before anyone asks,  
/'^_^'\: The tune is the Oscar Meyer Weiner Song!   
~*^_^*~: No! I just wanted to say this is a one-shot. This is the end!  
/'^_^'\: Say wheeeeeeeeeeen, will we ever meet agaiiiin!  
~*^_^*~: Will you please SHUT UP!  
/'^_^'\: Buh-bye, all our adoring fans!  
~*^_^*~: And may you be lucky enough never to cross our path in real life. 


End file.
